Accurate estimates of flood peaks, corresponding volumes, and hydrographs are required to design safe and cost‐effective hydraulic structures. In this paper, we propose a statistical approach for the estimation of the design variables peak and volume by constructing synthetic design hydrographs for different flood types such as flash‐floods, short‐rain floods, long‐rain floods, and rain‐on‐snow floods. Our approach relies on the fitting of probability density functions to observed flood hydrographs of a certain flood type and accounts for the dependence between peak discharge and flood volume. It makes use of the statistical information contained in the data and retains the process information of the flood type. The method was tested based on data from 39 mesoscale catchments in Switzerland and provides catchment specific and flood type specific synthetic design hydrographs for all of these catchments. We demonstrate that flood type specific synthetic design hydrographs are meaningful in flood‐risk management when combined with knowledge on the seasonality and the frequency of different flood types. Key Points Construction of synthetic design hydrographs using frequency and process‐based knowledge Flood types have a specific behavior regarding event shapes and the dependence between flood peaks and volumes Flood type specific design hydrographs can aid flood‐risk management